“Entre fronteiras e feridas”: violência estrutural, direitos humanos e práticas de cura no percurso acadêmico de estudantes universitárias no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos

Abstract

This study addresses practices of structural violence that permeate and undermine the concept of human rights, as well as processes of healing, care, and resistance as possibilities for confronting the oppressions resulting from these structures. The study was operationalized based on the following general objective: to analyze the relationships between structural violence, human rights, and healing processes in the discourses of female university students in Brazil and the United States. The following specific objectives were developed: a) to describe my experience as a Brazilian researcher and immigrant in the U.S. university context; b) to understand the immigration experiences of Brazilian female students in the United States, with an emphasis on forms of intersectional violence; c) to compare university students’ conceptions of human rights and their violations in daily university life in Brazil and the United States, based on intersectional markers; and d) to systematize healing and reparation practices and strategies that contribute to the construction of an intervention program committed to human rights in university spaces. The research articulates four qualitative empirical studies, including autoethnography, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups as methodological procedures conducted with female university students in Brazil and the United States, revealing the effects of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and coloniality in university spaces. Records were made through audio recordings and field diaries, with the proper authorizations. The work proposes the intervention program “Raízes de Cuidado” (Roots of Care), grounded in Afro-diasporic healing practices and structured around pillars of socioeconomic support, comprehensive mental health, and sociocultural assistance. The university is understood as an ambivalent space, simultaneously a reproducer of oppressions and potentially transformative, making the presence and centrality of Black, peripheral, trans, and counter-hegemonic women indispensable in the construction of a university project committed to situated and localized human rights in the Global South.